Kevin Brockmeier's 50 favorite short stories in the Oxford American–several of my own favorites are included. (I do love Terry Bisson's "Bears Discover Fire," but "The Two Janets" is actually my fave from that collection. And, yay, the whole collection is on google books here, and I've handily bookmarked the Janets page for you. It starts: "I'm not one of those people who thinks you have to read a book to get something out of it. You can learn a lot about a book by picking it up, turning it over, rubbing the cover, riffling the pages open and shut. Especially if it's been read enough times before, it'll speak to you." Also, happy to see stories by Dora Goss and Kelly on there.)
Jeff Ford's "How They Tried to Make Me Hate Reading" goes in the short list of posts that will always make me happy, from now until the end of time. You must read it. Of Silas Marner in the sixth grade: "If Rumsfeld had known of it, they seriously would have put this to use at Guantanamo." Hee.